In those contact sports wherein sticks are integral elements of the game, such as in lacrosse or hockey, it is important that the hands of the players be provided with adequate protection against the intensive stick strikes and other severe impacts which may be suffered during the course of play. The conventional hockey or lacrosse glove is constructed so as to provide finger stalls for the individual fingers of the hand and impact protective padding, now usually composed of a resilient polymeric foam composition, covering the dorsal surface of each finger and the back and sides of the hand. Normally, the protective padding is carried proximally of the hand, such by means of an attached cuff, so as to also afford protection to the wrist and at least the lower portion of the forearm. It is also known to utilize stiff, impact resistant sheet form elements as protective components in such glove padding constructions. Because the protective padding protocols employed often restrict flexibility and because the sport to which the protective glove is directed involves nearly continuous gripping of a stick element, it is also conventional to fabricate such gloves with segmented padding in order to somewhat improve hand and/or finger flexibility and with the finger stalls for the second through fifth fingers, in other words, the forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky, in a precurled position such as to emulate the natural gripping position of the player's hands. Thus, gripping of the stick is made easier and more natural simply because the wearer of such a precurled glove construction need not first overcome the stiffness of the protective finger padding in closing these fingers over the stick shaft and thereby establishing a gripping relationship therewith.
Because the human thumb, or first finger, is in opposition to the remaining fingers of the hand and its skeletal structure is substantially different from that of the remaining fingers, the protective padding structures employed in the prior art, particularly those employing protective stiffening components, do not ordinarily provide adequate flexibility in the thumb portion of the glove. Typical of such thumb protective structures are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,515, to Murray, issued Dec. 14, 1971 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,572, to Jansson et al., issued Feb. 6, 1979. In the Murray patent a thumb guard construction is disclosed comprising an elongate stiff unbreakable center or core insert sandwiched between layers of a shock absorbing material. The length of this monolithic thumb guard construction is shown to be sufficient as to cover both phalanges as well as at least a portion of the metacarpal of the thumb. Murray apparently recognizes the inflexible nature of this thumb guard construction and, in response thereto, does not attach it directly to the thumb encasing portion of the glove. Instead, the thumb encasing portion of the glove is rendered movable independently of the thumb guard by attachment thereto with a short strap. This means, however, that as the player's thumb is curled around the stick shaft in a gripping position, at least the distal portion of the thumb moves away from the overlying thumb guard and the protection afforded thereby. In the Jansson et al. patent a thumb protective element is disclosed which is similar in construction to the stiff elongate sandwich structure employed in Murray. In Jansson et al., however, this unarticulated stiff protective element extends proximally and uninterruptedly from the tip of the thumb stall into the wrist protective cuff thereof. In addition, the thumb protective element is stitched directly to the thumb stall of the glove. Thus, the thumb portion of the Jansson et al. glove appears to provide even less flexibility than that of the Murray glove.
In a proper grip of a contact sport stick element, whereby maximum control of and maximum application of power to the stick element is attained, it is generally desirable that the shaft of the stick as it enters the gripping hand be positioned within the thenar space of the palm; namely, the space defined between the fleshy palmar bulge at the base of the thumb and the base of the forefinger. This proper grip position can be more readily achieved when the thumb portion of a protective glove is provided with sufficient flexibility as to allow the thumb of the player to be readily curled around the shaft of the stick such that the stick shaft is positioned under the the proximal phalanx of the thumb. Such flexibility also provides greater facility when the player wishes to affirmatively loosen the stick within his or her grasp and to rotate or spin it to suit the particular playing task at hand. For instance, in the sport of lacrosse a player carrying the ball often loosens his or her grip and rapidly spins the stick or "crosse" about its longitudinal axis in order to impart centrifugal force to the ball, thereby to aid in maintaining the ball within the pocket of the network of the stick.
Another phenomenon related to the thumb anatomy of a player of a contact stick sport can occur when the stick of a player is violently contacted by the stick of an opposing player, such as commonly occurs in stick checking. Here, the thumb of the checked player can be generally construed for modelling purposes as defining a jointed reaction lever having its fulcrum at the base thereof. A checking force applied to the outer portion of the stick of the checked player can serve to displace the stick distally along the thumb of the checked player, thereby, in effect, to increase the moment arm of the reaction lever and the physical load imposed on the thumb's anatomical structure. The desired effect, of course, is to cause the checked player carrying the ball or puck to lose control thereof. An undesired effect, however, can be injury to the thumb. The increased effective leverage which results as the stick slips distally along the thumb poses a particular problem because, where this occurs, the checked player's already partially opened or loosened thumb, with continued application of the same or similar checking force to the outer portion of his or her stick, can be even more readily bent or displaced to the point of fracture, dislocation, sprain or other serious injury thereto. The present applicant is unaware of any prior art protective athletic glove construction which addresses this problem.